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, a nomadic people in the South Russian steppes who flourished in the early Islamic period. The K̲h̲azar tribal union emerged in the course of the 6th century A.D. in the aftermath of a series of migrations of nomadic peoples from Inner and Central Asia. With the collapse of the European Hun state in 454 A.D., some of the nomadic elements of Attila’s horde withdrew to the Pontic steppe zone. They were joined here, ca. 463 A.D., by waves of Og̲h̲ur tribes which had been driven from Western Siberia and the Kazak̲h̲ steppe by the Sabirs who, in turn, had been forced to m…

, capital of a Muslim kingdom in the upper Ili [ q.v.] valley, founded in the 7th/13th century by Ūzār (Ḏj̲uwaynī, i, 57) or Būzār (Ḏj̲amāl Ḳars̲h̲ī, in W. Barthold, Turkestan , Russ. ed., i, 135 f.), who is said to have previously been a brigand and horse-thief. According to Ḏj̲amāl, he assumed the title of Tog̲h̲ri̊l Ḵh̲ān as ruler. Almali̊g̲h̲ is first mentioned as the capital of this kingdom, and later as a great and wealthy commercial city. We owe our information about its site mainly to the Chinese (Bretschneider, Med . Researches , i, 69 f., ii, 33 ff. and in…

, conventional form Syr Darya, a river of Central Asia and the largest in that region. The Turkish element in the name, si̊r , is not actually found before the 10th/16th century; in the following century, the K̲h̲īwan ruler and historian Abu ’l-G̲h̲āzī Bahādur K̲h̲ān [ q.v.] calls the Aral Sea “the Sea of Sir” (Si̊r Teñizi). 1. In the early and mediaeval periods. The Si̊r Daryā flows through the present republics of Kirgizia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan down from the northwestern slopes of the Tien Shan Mountains to the Aral Sea [ q.v.]. It is formed by the confluence in the e…

, Persian historian, author of the well-known Maṭlaʿ-i Saʿdayn wa-Mad̲j̲maʿ-i Baḥrayn , born in Harāt S̲h̲aʿbān 816/Nov. 1413, died there Ḏj̲umādā II 887/July-August 1482. His father was imām and ḳāḍī of the camp ( ḥaḍrat ) of S̲h̲āhruk̲h̲ and read out books and expounded various problems ( masāʾil ) to him ( Maṭlaʿ , ii, 704, 870, cf. 706). He received the usual type of education, and one of his teachers was his elder brother ʿAbd al-Ḳahhār. He also attended when his father read the two Ṣaḥīḥs to S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Muḥ. al-Ḏj̲azarī (d. 833/1429) (ibid., ii, 631-1294) and received an id̲j̲āza …

Ḥusaynī rāzī , Persian historian, b. ca. 993/1585, date of death unknown; author of a large history of the world, which in the manuscripts is sometimes called “Mad̲j̲maʿ” and sometimes “Zubdat al-tawārīk̲h̲” , and is generally known as “Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Ḥaydarī” . The work is arranged according to geographical divisions in five bāb s: 1. the Arab world; 2. Persia; 3. Central Asia and the Far East; 4. the West; 5. India, each of which is arranged chronologically. They deal with political history and frequently reach into the time …

, also known as fūs̲h̲and̲j̲ , in Middle Persian probably Pūs̲h̲ang, ancient Iranian town to the south of the river Harīrūd, and 10 parasangs (= one day’s journey) W-S-W. of Harāt (Yāḳūt, i, 758) which lies north of the river. The town already existed in pre-Islamic times, and, according to legend, was founded either (considering its name) by the hero Pas̲h̲ang (the son, though in the epos the father, of Afrāsiyāb), or else by the Sāsānid ruler S̲h̲āpūr I (242-271) (J. Marquart, Erāns̲h̲ahr , 49). In the year 588, the town is mentioned as the seat of a Nestorian bishop ( ibid., 64; it is, howev…

, Turkestan , a Persian term meaning “land of the Turks”. 1. As a designation for the Central Asian lands to the north of modern Persia and Afg̲h̲ānistān. This roughly corresponded to the older Transoxania or Mā warāʾ al-nahr [ q.v.] and the steppe lands to its north, although these last were from Mongol times onwards (sc. the 13th century) often distinguished as Mog̲h̲olistān [ q.v.]. To the Persians, of course, only the southern frontier of the land of the Turks, the frontier against Īrān, was of importance and this frontier naturally depended on political conditions. On ¶ their very firs…

, Tibbat , Tibat , the most frequent vocalisations in the medieval Islamic sources for the consonant ductus T.b.t denoting the Inner Asian land of Tibet (with Tubbat , e.g. in Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, ii, 10, also preferred by Minorsky in his Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 92-3, and his edition and tr. of Marwazī, see below). The origin of the name has recently been examined by L. Bazin and J. Hamilton in a very detailed and erudite study, L’origine du nom Tibet , in Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde , xxvi [1991], 244-62, repr. in Bazin, Les Turcs , des mots, des hommes, Paris 1994. They…

, Mongol Great K̲h̲ān (1260-94), the brother and successor of Möngke [ q.v.], was born in 1215. In 1251 Möngke entrusted him with the administration of Northern China, and he took part in the subsequent war which his brother launched against the Sung rulers of the South. The conquest of the Sung was finally completed only during his own reign (1279), when the whole of China was again united under one ruler for the first time since the tenth century. Already in 1260 he had transferred the capital of the Empire from Ḳaraḳorum [ q.v.] to Peking, in Mongol K̲h̲ān-Bali̊g̲h̲ [ q.v.], i.e. “K̲h̲ān’s T…

, founder of the Čag̲h̲atay Ḵh̲anate [ q.v.], the second son of Čingiz-Ḵh̲ān and his chief wife Börte Fud̲j̲in. Already in his father’s lifetime he was regarded as the greatest authority on the Yasa (the tribal laws of the Mongols as codified by Čingiz-Ḵh̲ān). Like his brothers he took part in his father’s campaigns against China (1211-1216) and against the kingdom of the Ḵh̲wārizm-S̲h̲āh (1219-1224). Urgānd̲j̲, the latter’s capital, was besieged by the three princes Ḏj̲oči, Čag̲h̲atay and Ögedey and taken in Ṣafar 618/27th March-24th April 1221. In the sam…

(Turkic “black hat”), a Turkic people of Central Asia. In the Russian annals, a people of this name (Černiye Klobutsi) is mentioned as early as the 12th century A.D.; but whether these “black hats” are identical with the modern Ḳaraḳalpaḳ cannot be definitely ascertained. It is not until the end of the 11th/17th century that there are records of the Ḳaraḳalpaḳ, in Central Asia. According to the embassy report of Skibin and Tros̲h̲in (1694), they then lived on the Si̊r Daryā, 10 days’ journey bel…

(thus on his coins: Mong. Möngke-Temür, sometimes written also Mūngkā (e.g. Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn, ed. Blochet, 109); in Russian annals Mengutimer and Mengutemer, called also Külük “Glorious”, “Famous”), k̲h̲ān of the Golden Horde (665-79/1267-80), grandson of the k̲h̲ān Bātū [ q.v.] and son of Toḳūḳān (Tog̲h̲on). His predecessor Berke [ q.v.] died, according to al-D̲h̲ahabī, in Rabīʿ II 665/30 Dec. 1266 - 27 Jan. 1267 (see Tiesenhausen, 210-2; other Egyptian sources mention only the year). In Ṣafar 666/Oct.-Nov. 1267), an embassy left Cairo which w…

, district in Soviet Türkmenistān on the northern slope of the frontier-mountains of Ḵh̲urāsān (Kopet Dag̲h̲), between the modern railway ¶ stations Gjaurs and Dus̲h̲ak. The name is really Turkish, Etek, "edge border" (of the mountain-chain), and is a translation of the Persian name given to this district, viz. Dāman-i Kūh, "foot of the mountain"; but the word is always written Ātak by the Persians. During the Middle Ages no special name for Atek appears to have been in use; being a district of the town of Abīward [ q.v.] it belonged to Ḵh̲urāsān. In the 10th/16th and 11th/17th cent…

was between 1882 and 1890 the name of a district ( uězd ) in the Russian territory ( oblastʾ ) of Transcaspia, which had been conquered by the Russians in 1881. It comprised the subdistricts of Atek [ q.v.] (chief place: the village of Kaak̲h̲ka) and Durūn [ q.v.] (Darūn; chief place: Bak̲h̲arden). Since 1890 the district is called ʿAs̲h̲ḳābād [ q.v.]—The name Āk̲h̲āl (which is of modern origin) applies to the oases on the northern slope of the Kopet Dag̲h̲ and Küren Dag̲h̲; Tekke refers to the Tekke or Teke [ q.v.] Turkmen, the present inhabitants of this region. The Islamic geographe…

, second son of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Samarḳand, grandson of Sulṭān Abū Saʿīd [ q.v.], born in the year 882/1477-8, killed on 10 Muḥarram 905/17 Aug. 1493. In the lifetime of his father he was prince of Buk̲h̲ārā; on the death of the latter in Rabīʿ II 900/30 Dec. 1494/27 Jan. 1495, he was summoned to Samarḳand. In 901/1495-6, he was deposed for a brief period by his brother Sulṭān ʿAlī and in 903, towards the end of Rabīʿ I November 1497, finally overthrown by his cousin Bābur. Bāysong̲h̲or then betook himself to…

, or alta s̲h̲ahr (the word "six" is always written alta in Chinese Turkistān), "six towns", a name for part of Chinese Turkistān (Sin-kiang) comprising the towns of Kuča, Aḳ Su, Uč Turfān (or Us̲h̲ Turfān), Kās̲h̲g̲h̲ar, Yārkand and Ḵh̲otan. It appears to have been first used in the 18th century (cf. M. Hartmann, Der Islamische Orient , i, 226, 278). Yangi Ḥiṣār, between Kās̲h̲g̲h̲ar and Yārkand, is sometimes added as the seventh town (though it also frequently counted as one of the six, in which case either Kuča or Uč Turfān is…

Arab. d̲j̲anza , the former Elizavetpol , now Kirovabad , the second largest town in the Azerbaijan S.S.R. ¶ The town was first founded under Arab rule, in 245/859 according to the Ta’rīk̲h̲ Bāb al-abwāb (V. Minorsky,A History of Sharvān and Darband , Cambridge 1958, 25 and 57). It is not mentioned by the oldest Arabic geographers like Ibn Ḵh̲urradād̲h̲bih and Yaʿḳūbī; it seems to have taken its name from the pre-Muslim capital of Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān (now the ruins of Tak̲h̲t-i-Sulaymān). Iṣṭak̲h̲rī. 187 and 193, mentions Gand̲j̲a only as a small town on the road from Bard̲h̲aʿa [ q.v.] to Tif…

or balāsaḳūn , a town in the valley of the Ču, in what is now Kirg̲h̲izia. The medieval geographers give only vague indications as to its position. Barthold, Otčet o poyezdke v Sredniya Aziyu , St. Petersburg 1897, 39, suggests its identity with Aḳ-Pes̲h̲in in the region of Frunze. A. N. Bernshtam, Čuyskaya dolina in Materialī i issledovaniya arkheologii S.S.S.R ., No 14 (1950), 47-55, agrees with Barthold and gives a description of the site. The town was a Soghdian foundation and in Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī’s time, i.e., in the second half of the 11th century, the Soghdian language still …

, a garrison town and administrative centre in Eastern Turkey, situated on 40°37′ N. and 43°06′ E., chef-lieu of the il (province) of the same name, which is bounded by the U.S.S.R. and the ils of Artvin, Erzurum and Aǧri̊ and contains the ilçes (districts) of Posof, Hanak, Çildir, Ardahan, Göle, Susuz, Arpaçay, Selim, Digor, Sarikamiş, Kaǧizman, Tuzluca and Aralik, with that of Kars itself. In 1960 the population of the provinces of Kars was 543,000; in 1965 (provisional), 606,521, of which 20% was urban and 80% agricultural or rural ( Kars Il yilliǧi 1967, Ankara n.d.). The etymologies su…

, in the Arabic sources frequently al-bāmiyān , a town in the Hindu-Kus̲h̲ north of the main range in a mountain valley lying 8,480 feet above sea level, through which one of the most important roads between the lands of the Oxus watershed and the Indus leads; the town is therefore naturally important as a commercial centre and was important in the middle ages as a fortress also. Although the valley, that of the Kunduz river, really belongs to the Oxus watershed and is separated from Kābul by high mountain passes, e.g., the Shibar and Unnai, its political association has often shifted…

, a small district on both sides of the middle Jaxartes at the mouth of its tributary, the Aris, which flows from Isfid̲j̲āb. It is also the name of the principal settlement in this district. The older Persian form Pārāb occurs in Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , (72, 118 ff., 122), the form Bārāb in Iṣṭak̲h̲rī (346) and Muḳaddasī (273; but also Fārāb) as well as in the later Persian sources. The extent of the district in both length and breadth was less than a day’s journey (Ibn Ḥawḳal, 390 ff.). According to Masʿūdī ( Tanbīh , 366) the region was flooded annually at the end of Ja…

, or burdas (in al-Bakrī furdās ), pagan tribe of the Volga basin. For an account of the Burṭās and their neighbours the Ḵh̲azars and the Bulg̲h̲ārs, to the north and south, see bulg̲h̲ār . Al-Masʿūdī ( Murūd̲j̲ , ii, 14 & Tanbīh , 62) lists Burṭās also as a river flowing into the Itil (Volga); Marquart identifies this stream with Samara ( Streifzüge , 336). The sources do not mention any adherents to Islam among the Burṭās, which contrasts with their accounts of the Ḵh̲azars and Bulg̲h̲ārs. Yāḳūt’s report on the Burṭās (i, 567) is base…

, ancient Armenian capital, whose ruins lie on the right bank of the Arpa-Čay (called by the Armenians Ak̲h̲uryan) at about 20 miles from the point where that river joins the Araxes. A suggestion has been made that the town may owe its name to a temple of the Iranian goddess Anāhita (the Greek Anaďtis). The site was inhabited in the pre-Christian period, for pagan tombs have been found in the immediate vicinity of the town. As a fortress Ānī is mentioned as early as the 5th century A.D. Its foun…

The word ḳazaḳ in the Turkic language can be first documented in the 8th/14th century in ¶ the meaning “independent; vagabond”. These and similar meanings, such as “free and independent man, vagabond, adventurer, etc.” are known in the modern Turkic languages too. During the turmoils under the Tīmūrids, the word signified the pretenders in contrast to the actual rulers, and also their supporters, who led the life of an adventurer or a robber at the head of their men. At the same time, the word began also to be …

b. hās̲h̲im , of the aristocratic dihḳān family Kāmkāriyān (who had settled near Marw), which boasted of Sāsānian descent, governor of Ḵh̲urāsān. In order to avenge the death of his brother, fallen in a fight between Persians and Arabs (in Marw), he had under ʿAmr b. al-Layt̲h̲ stirred up a rising of the people. He was taken prisoner and brought to Sīstān, whence he escaped by means of an adventurous flight, and after a new attempt at a rising in Marw he fled for refuge to th…

, a Mongol prince and ruler of the Golden Horde, grandson of Čingiz-Ḵh̲an and third son of Ḏj̲oči. Little is known of his early career. He took no part in the wars in Russia and Eastern Europe in the years 634-639/1237-1242 but was more frequently in Mongolia than Batu, whom he represented at the enthronement of Güyük (644/1246) and that of Möngke (649/1251). His yurt of appanage was originally situated, according to Rubruck, in the direction of Darband but by 653/1255 had on Batu’s orders been removed to the east of the Volga in order …

, steppe of Western Siberia, situated in the oblast ’ of Novosibirsk of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, between lat. 54° and 57° North, and bounded on the East and West by the ranges of hills which skirt the banks of the Irti̊s̲h̲ and the Ob’. This steppe, which extends for 117,000 sq. km., has numerous lakes, most of which are sait; the biggest is Lake Čani̊. The ground, which is partly marshland, also has some fertile zones, but it is essentially a cattle-rearing region. It has a cold continental climate. The population (over 500,000 inhabitants in 1949) is unequally d…

, S̲h̲arwān S̲h̲āh , the title in mediaeval Islamic times of the rulers of S̲h̲īrwān [ q.v.] in eastern Transcaucasia. The title very probably dates back to pre-Islamic times. Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 17-18, mentions the S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh as one of the local rulers who received his title from the Sāsānid emperor Ardas̲h̲īr. Al-Balād̲h̲urī mentions the S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh, together with an adjacent potentate, the Layzān S̲h̲āh, as amongst those encountered by the first Arab raiders into the region; he further records that…

, the modern s̲h̲ahr-i sabz (“green town”) on account of the fertility of its surroundings), a town in Özbekistān on what was once the great trade route between Samarḳand and Balk̲h̲. According to Chinese authorities, Kas̲h̲ (Chinese transcription Kʾia-s̲h̲a or Kié-s̲h̲uang-na, also Kʾius̲h̲a, as a town Ki-s̲h̲e) was founded at the beginning of the seventh century A.D.; cf. J. Marquart, Chronologie der alttürkischen Inschriften , Leipzig 1898, 57; Ērānšahr etc., Berlin 1901, 304; E. Chavannes, Documents sur les Toukiue ( Turcs ) occidentaux , St. Petersbu…

, the first of the Ḳutlug̲h̲ Ḵh̲āns of Kirmān. By origin a Ḳara-Ḵh̲itayan he was, according to Ḏj̲uwaynī, brought to Sulṭān Muḥammad Ḵh̲wārazm-S̲h̲āh after the defeat of the Ḳara-Ḵh̲itay on the Talas in 1210 and taken into his service, in which he rose to the rank of ḥād̲j̲ib or Chamberlain. According to Nasawī he had held this same office at the court of the Gür-Ḵh̲an or ruler of the Ḳara-Ḵh̲itay. Being sent on an embassy to Sulṭān Muḥammad he was forcibly detained by the latter until the final collapse of the Ḳara-Ḵh̲…

, usually written Tās̲h̲kend or Tas̲h̲kend in Arabic and Persian manuscripts, a large town in Central Asia, in the oasis of the Čirčik, watered by one of the right bank tributaries of the Si̊r Daryā [ q.v.] or Jaxartes now, since the break-up of the USSR, in the Uzbekistan Republic (lat. 41° 16’ N., long. 69° 13’ E.). 1. History till 1865. Nothing is known of the origin of the settlement on the Čirčik. According to the Greek and Roman sources, there were only nomads on the other side of the Jaxartes. In the earliest Chinese sources (from the 2nd century B.…

The Central Asian Ḵh̲ānate to which Čag̲h̲atay gave his name was really not founded till some decades after the Mongol prince’s death. Čag̲h̲atay was succeeded by his grandson Ḳara-Hülegü, the son of Mö’etüken who fell at Bāmiyān. Ḳara-Hülegü had been designated as Čag̲h̲atay’s heir both by Čingiz-Ḵh̲ān himself and by Ögedey; he was however deposed by the Great Ḵh̲ān Güyük (1241-1248) in favour of Yesü-Möngke, the fifth son of Čag̲h̲atay, with whom Güyük was on terms of personal friendship. In 1…

, Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Ḥayy b. al-Ḍaḥḥāk b. Maḥmūd , Persian historian who flourished in the middle of the 5th/11th century. Nothing is known of his life. His nisba shows that he came from Gardīz [ q.v.]; since he says that he received information about Indian festivals from al-Bīrūnī [ q.v.], he may have been his pupil. His work, entitled Zayn al-ak̲h̲bār, was written in the reign of the G̲h̲aznawid Sultan ʿAbd al-Ras̲h̲īd (440/1049-443/1052). It contains a history of the pre-Islamic kings of Persia, of Muḥammad and the Caliphs to the year 423/1032, and a d…

, after the Aral [ q.v.], the largest inland lake of Central Asia (18,432 sq. km.), into which the Ili and several other less important rivers flow. The lake’s existence was unknown to the Arab geographers of the Middle Ages. The anonymous author of the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam (372/982-983; comp. J. Marquart, Osteuropäische und ostasiatische Streifzüge , xxx, makes the Ili (Īlā) flow into the Issi̊ḳ-Ḳul. Of all the Muslim authors, Muḥammad Ḥaydar is the only one, to our knowledge, who, towards the middle of the 10th/16th century ( Taʾrik̲h̲-i Ras̲h̲īdī , trans. by E. D. …

, a town on the north bank of the Oxus river [see āmū daryā ] near the mouth of its tributary, the Surk̲h̲ān river (lat. 37° 15’ N., long. 67° 15’ E.), now the town of Termez in the southernmost part of the Uzbekistan Republic. As Samʿānī, who spent 12 days there, testifies, the name was pronounced Tarmīd̲h̲ in the town itself ( K. al-Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābad, iii, 41) which is confirmed by the Chinese Ta-mi (e.g. Hüan Tsang, tr. St. Julien, Mémoires sur les contrées occidentales, i, 25). Russian officers in 1889 also heard the pronunciation Termiz or Tarmi̊z ( Sbornik materialov po Azii …

(variant: Ḳumiḳ) a people of the eastern Caucasus. The Ḳumuḳs belong to the Ḳipčaḳ Turkic ethnic group, along with the Nog̲h̲ay, Karačay and Balkar. They live north of the main chain of the Great Caucasus, on the northern, north-eastern and eastern slopes of the Dāg̲h̲istānian Caucasus between the foothills and the Caspian Sea, from Derbend to Adz̲h̲i-Su (near the lower Terek River). Although confined to a narrow strip of land in the south, they inhabit a wider area near the Terek in the north. The Ḳumuḳs are bordered by the Nog̲h̲ays in the north, the Avars [ q.v.] and Darg̲h̲ins [ q.v.] in th…

, a district on both sides of the middle course of the Wak̲h̲s̲h̲ or Surk̲h̲āb (Turk. Ḳi̊zi̊l Ṣū), one of the rivers which form the Āmū Daryā, called Rās̲h̲t by the Arab geographers (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih 34, 211 f.; Ibn Rusta, 92 f., 290; Yaʿḳūbī, Buldān , 260). The principal place (or “the fortress”, al-Ḳalʿa , al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 340) of Rās̲h̲t corresponded as regards its situation perfectly with the modern Garm or Harm, the only town in Ḳaratigin. Rās̲h̲t then formed one of the frontier lands of Islām and was ¶ defended on the east against the inroads of the Turks by a wall built by Faḍl b. Barmak [ q…

al-ḥād̲j̲ib , abū saʿīd (his alleged second name Hārūn which occurs in a single passage of Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, ix, 294, is probably due to an error of the author or of a copyist), Turkish slave, later general of the G̲h̲aznawid Sebuk Tegīn and his two successors and governor of Ḵh̲wārizm. Already under Sebuk Tegīn he attained the highest rank in the bodyguard, that of a "great ḥād̲j̲ib "; under Maḥmūd he commanded the right wing in the great battle against the Ḳarak̲h̲ānids (22 Rabīʿ II 398/4 Jan. 1008, and in 401/1010-1 he is mentioned as governor of Harāt. After the conquest of k̲h̲wārizm in 408/1…

, a Persian historian, wrote in 1233/1818 a short summary of the geographical relations of Central Asiatic countries (Afg̲h̲ānistān, Buk̲h̲ārā, Ḵh̲īwā, Ḵh̲oḳand, Tibet and Kas̲h̲mīr), and of historical events in those countries from 1160 (accession of Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Durrānī) down to his own times. ʿAbd al-Karīm had already left his native country in 1222/1807-8 and accompanied an embassy to Constantinople; he remained there till his death, which took place after 1246/1830, and wrote his book for t…

(t. “Red sand”), a desert between the Si̊r-Daryā and Āmū-Daryā rivers [ qq. v., and also ḳarā-ḳum ], falling within the modern Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan SSRs. The country is less uniform, especially in the central part, than in the Ḳarā-Ḳum; the sand desert is crossed by several ranges of hills, and in some places is rocky. The Ḳi̊zi̊l-Ḳum ¶ becomes more and more inhospitable as one goes southwards. The region called Adam-Ḳi̊zi̊lg̲h̲an (“where man perishes”) between the Āmū-Daryā and the cultivated region of Buk̲h̲ārā, consisting of sandhills ( bark̲h̲ān ), is …

“White Mosque”, name of two towns: 1. Town in the Crimea (local pronunciation: Aḳ Mečet), founded in the 16th. century by the k̲h̲āns of the Crimea in order to protect their capital, Bāg̲h̲če Sarāy, from nomad incursions. It was the residence of the crown prince ( kalg̲h̲ay sulṭān ), whose palace was outside the town, according to Ewliyā Čelebi, vii, 638-41. The town was destroyed by the Russians in 1736, and rebuilt in 1784 under the name of Simferopol (although the local population continued to use the Turkish name). 2. A fortress on the Si̊r Daryā, which belonged to the Ḵh̲ānate …

There has been no satisfactory explanation of the origin of the word. The following have been suggested: 1) as late as the 7th/13th (!) century, borrowed by the Nestorian Mission from the Syrian ṣělībhā ‘cross’, which was subsequently taken to mean a worshipper of the crucifix (Aḥmed Wefīk Pas̲h̲a, Lehd̲j̲e , loc. cit.); the same, thoug̲h taken over considerably earlier: Viktor, Baron Rosen in Zapiski Vost. Otd. v, 305 ff.; xi, 310 ff.; with additional source references also found in P. Melioranskiy, Zapiski Vost. Otd. xv, 1904, 036 ff.; cf. also Menges, as in the bibliography;…

, S̲h̲irwān or S̲h̲arwān , a region of eastern Caucasia, known by this name in both mediaeval Islamic and modern times. S̲h̲īrwān proper comprised the easternmost spurs of the Caucasus range and the lands which sloped down from these mountains to the banks of the Kur river [ q.v.]. But its rulers strove continuously to control also the western shores of the Caspian Sea from Ḳuba (the modern town of Kuba) in the district of Maskat (< *Maskut, Mas̲h̲kut, to be connected with the ancient Eurasian steppe people of the Massagetes) in the north, to Bākū [ q.v.] (modern Baku) in the south. To the …

(Turkish “warm lake”), the most important mountain lake in Turkistan and one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world, situated in between 42° 11′ and 42° 59′ N. Lat. and between 76° 15′ and 78° 30′ warm sea; the lake never freeze E. Long., 1605 m. (5,116 feet) above sea level; the length of the lake is about 115 miles, the breadth up to 37 miles, the depth up …

pre-Islamic title borne by the native princes of Us̲h̲rūsana. the mountainous district between Samarḳand and Ḵh̲ud̲j̲anda, including the upper course of the Zarafs̲h̲ān river (Barthold, Turkestan 2, 165-9). The province was subjected to the Arab governors of Ḵh̲urāsān by an expedition commanded by al-Faḍl b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī in 178/794-5, but it was only after an internal conflict and a second expedition under Aḥmad b. Abī Ḵh̲ālid in 207/822 that the ruling afs̲h̲īn Kāwūs accepted Islām. Kāwūs was succeeded by his son Ḵh̲…

, Ferg̲h̲ānā, a valley on the middle Jaxartes (Si̊r-Daryā), approximately 300 km. long and 70 km. wide, surrounded by parts of the Tians̲h̲an mountains: the Čatkal range (Ar. Ḏj̲adg̲h̲al. up to 3,000 m. high) on the north, the Ferg̲h̲ānā mountains (up to 4,000 m.) on the east, and the Alai mountains (up to 6,000 m.) on the south. The only approach (7 km. wide) accessible in all seasons is in the west, at the point where the Jaxartes leaves the valley and where the trade-route (and since 1899 the railway from Samarḳand to Ōs̲h̲) enters it. The Farg̲h̲ānā valley covers approximately 23,000 km.2; t…

, a city in a large oasis in present day Uzbekistān on the lower course of the Zarafs̲h̲ān River. The city is 722 ft. (222.4 m.) above sea level and is located at 64° 38′ E. long. (Greenw.) and 39° 43′ N. Lat. We have few references to the city in pre-Islamic times. In the time of Alexander the Great there was ariother town in Sogdiana besides Marakanda (Samarḳand) on the lower course of the river but it probably did not correspond to the modern city of Buk̲h̲ārā. The oasis was inhabited from early times and towns certainly existed there. The earliest literary occurrence of the name is in Chin…

(Turkish “black sand”), a desert in Russian Turkestan, between the Amū Daryā, the Üst Yurt and the ranges of hills on the Caspian, contrasted with Ḳi̊zi̊l-Ḳum (“red sand”), the desert between the Si̊r Daryā and the Āmū Daryā. The Ḳaraḳum (area ca. 300,000 sq. km.) is a still more dreary waste and possesses even fewer fertile areas than the Ḳi̊zi̊l-ḳum. The sandy stretches north of the Sir as far as Lake Čalkar are called “little Ḳarāḳum”; cf. F. Machatschek, Landeskunde von Russisch-Turkestan , Stuttgart 1921, 15 f., 285, and index. A good deal of the Ḳa…

, a river in the north of Ḵh̲urāsān, which has its source on the mountain of Hazār ¶ Masd̲j̲id on the Gulistān ridge of the Kopet Dag̲h̲, 37° 10′ N, ca. 59° E, NE of Kočan (Kūčān), 3,975 ft. above sea level. The Atrek has a course of some 320 miles (Mustawfī: 120 farsak̲h̲s ), running mainly westwards and runs, being some 32 ft. wide, 2-3 ft. deep, into the bay of Ḥasan Ḳulī in the SE of the Caspian Sea. On its upper reaches lie the fertile districts of Kočan and Bud̲j̲nurd (in the Middle Ages Ustuwā), which are inhabited by K…

, Gökče-göl or Gökče-deniz ; otherwise Sevan, from Armenian Sew-vank , ‘Black monastery’; a great lake in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, approx. 40° 20° N and 45′ 30′ E. Triangular in shape, Lake Gökče lies 6,000 feet/1830 metres above sea level and is surrounded by barren mountains; its area was formerly reckoned at 540 sq. miles and maximum depth 67 fathoms, but the level of the lake is being systematically …